1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a strobe device including a discharge tube having rare gas enclosed therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been conventionally known a strobe device in which a xenon tube having xenon gas enclosed therein is housed in a reflector having an opening on a front side (Patent Document 1). In this strobe device, both ends of the xenon tube stick out from side surfaces of the reflector.
Generally, in such a xenon tube, an anode and a cathode are formed at both ends of a glass tube forming an outer frame thereof. Further, the xenon tube is provided with a sintered body electrically connected to the cathode and having electric conductivity at a cathode side inside the xenon tube. This sintered body functions as an electron source having a property to emit electrons which excite xenon gas when a voltage is applied.
Further, generally, such a reflector has a surface at least partially having electric conductivity (hereinafter such a surface is referred to as an “electrically-conductive surface”), and a trigger voltage to generate flash from the xenon tube is applied to the electrically-conductive surface (e.g., a bottom surface of the reflector) of the reflector. Since the trigger voltage is a high voltage, when the trigger voltage is applied to the reflector, the trigger voltage is discharged to the sintered body through the glass tube.
This causes electrons to be emitted from the sintered body, and the electrons move toward the anode of the xenon tube. The electrons thus moving at this time collides with electrons in atoms of xenon gas, thereby causing the xenon gas to emit light. The light thus emitted from the xenon gas is condensed on a front side by reflection from a front surface of the reflector, so that light with high luminance is projected toward a front surface of the strobe device.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-97074